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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Not a bad life, if you can get away with it!

Thanks to fellow RVRC and ETS of NJ member, Don K2DSV for sharing.

My evening was spent on good ol' 80 Meters tonight as 40 Meters had that unfortunate 20dB over S9 QRN on it tonight (so no 40 Meter Foxhunt for W2LJ). But ...... wow! The pickin's were very sparse! Not many signals at all on 80. I did have one QSO with a fellow who cut it very short after I told him he had a 579C signal. He asked what the "C" was for, and I honestly told him he had some pretty bad chirp on his signal. I went from being "FB COPY" to pretty hard to hear in a matter of seconds. I guess he didn't appreciate being told that he had a less than optimal signal. But what are you supposed to do .... lie?

So I went looking for another QSO, but as we used to say, (at the risk of offending PETA folks or other animal lovers) that you could swing a dead cat without running into anyone. My CQ was finally answered by Randy KX1NH and we had a bit of a chat. That call, which is so distinctive, had clearly stuck in my mind. And the reason his call stuck in my gray matter is that we just worked each other Sunday evening in the Run for The Bacon. And it turns out that this is the same Randy who used to be K2VT, with whom I have QSOed MANY times before.

When Randy moved to New Hampshire, he acquired his neat call. I mean really ..... how cool is KX1NH? It's not the kind of call that you are going to easily forget once you've worked him. IMHO, that was a stroke of genius on Randy's part to obtain a call like that. Rarish prefix, nice rhythm on CW, and distinctive with regard to his QTH. A tip of my hat to Randy! Oh, and Randy's daughter's call? K2KID !!!

And by the way, that QSO with Randy was number 95 for 2012. I know, I know ..... a lot of you out there can do 95 QSOs while taking a catnap on a Saturday afternoon, while standing on one leg and with one arm tied behind your back. But the last couple of years, my QSO count was pretty well below average compared to what I'm usually used to. So while this is nothing to write home about (but that's kind of what I'm doing, aren't I?), it's very good compared to where I was at this point in 2010 and 2011.

4 comments:

Good morning Larry, I am one that would be thankful for know if my signal was clean or not. When I was in the NAQP CW the other weekend there was a station with a real bad Chirp. I tried to contact him/her and was not successful but it made them very hard to read.

Wow! Thanks for the link, now THAT is an effort, I sure wish him luck with his endeavor.

I gotta admit though, I'm a bit confused by your reference to my head swelling? I freely admitted in this post that my efforts so far this year are nothing compared to most of you out there. I'm just happy that I've been able to make an effort to get on the air more.

Sure hope you're not having a bad day. Your tone would seem to suggest otherwise.

Congrats on the increased QSOs. That's about 5 a day, not bad at all, especially since you're QRP. I think the important thing is that you're getting on the air regularly.

The only time I would commit a lie of omission about a chirp is when I work a chirper in a 3rd World country, because I know it's a problem they are probably not able to solve, due to old equipment or a poor electrical supply, so why rub salt in the wound.